We often read on the web about dotcom moguls who quit their job to live free and happily in the marvelous world of internet. For a while, I was skeptical about these crazy stories until I met a few of these bloggers personally. Still, I can totally understand why some of you are not too convinced it’s possible to literally live from your computer.

I recently dug into my network to find people who actually decided to increase their income and live a better life by creating a lucrative sideline. Through these five stories, I want to show you how it is possible to put your knowledge and talent to work and make more money than you are earning today. You can keep your job and make more income… it truly works!

I’m starting with Matt’s story because I believe it is the most accessible and incredible at the same time. I met this guy through my master mind group (read more about this story here) about year ago. He was like most readers on this blog: a guy with a job and a website trying to figure out how to make a few bucks from it. At the beginning, I remember he wasn’t making much. In fact, his first income report (July 2012) showed a net profit of $27.13. Trust me, you don’t want to convert this amount into an hourly wage! But 18 months later, he reported a net profit of $971.10 working about the same hours he used to when he started.

A thousand a month is certainly not enough to enable anybody to retire from their cubicle. But the point is exactly that: look at how this guy is putting his free time to work and earn $12,000 more in net income each year. This is better than any promotion you can get. What is really neat about his small business model is that it can be done by anybody! He didn’t do anything extraordinary, he just systematically applied what he learned month after month.

His main sources of income are split as follow:

#1 Keyword research service: Matt understood very clearly how to efficiently work with Long Tail Platinum Pro – keyword research software. Most people who want to build a niche site lack time to search for keywords or are very bad at finding the right ones. Matt’s keyword research service is a hassle free keyword research report delivered by email within seconds.

#2 Adsense: Using his own talent to find good keywords, Matt is building small niche sites and earns about $400-$500 per month from Adsense with these sites. Nothing fancy or complicated, just a good concept applied systematically.

#3 Affiliate Sales: He uses his blog to promote tools he uses to build his websites. This is the most common practice on the internet but it works!

By the way, on top of working full time and having this side gig, Matt is also a husband and father of two great kids.

Another guy from my Master Mind Group is an engineer who works lots of hours both at work and on his sites. Just to make sure he will burn out, Jon is also a father ;-). Yet, he finds enough time to build a relatively passive income business on the sideline.

He successfully built a resource for student debt consolidation. But instead of stopping his success at this point, he worked on this model and created a complete process to build niche website (remember, he is an engineer).

He actually uses his main talent at work to build a sustainable business. Through his efficient processes, he offers now two great search engine ranking systems. The first one finds expired domains and build links from it to your niche site. The second is a complete private blog network to build links and increase your ranking.

While his numbers are fairly impressive, Jon has no intention to quit his job at the moment. The thing is that he built a business that doesn’t require too much of his time and he can simply cash in from both work and his sideline. The beauty of his model is also the high price he can charge through both services. You don’t need many clients each month to reach 12K/month when you charge up to $599 for a full package!

The next two stories don’t include fabulous numbers and they are not reported. While I have a pretty good idea of how much they make since I’m in the same business as them, I won’t disclose my evaluation either.

Tom started 1 or 2 years after me in the Canadian personal finance blog universe. He quietly followed my path and started to build an online blog empire like mine. While I’ve always been pretty upfront with my empire, he remained quiet about it. All I can say is that he owns his share of the web and keeps making money from his financial websites.

I know he has a good job and kids. Yet, he finds time to make more money on the side through his blog. He uses multiple partnerships and hires writers to run his empire. He is now in a better position to enjoy life while raking in a few bucks every month.

I don’t know how he founded his first blog purchases but all I can say is that you can easily achieve a blog empire if you reinvest your profits for a while… or, like us, you borrow a few bucks to make your first purchase! I don’t know which method he used, but one thing is for sure, he owns a great portfolio of websites today and earns passive income better than any promotion he could have gotten at work. He preferred to work extra hours for himself instead of giving them to his boss – wise decision.

Kyle’s story is quite interesting too as he is a young and motivated teacher who thought financial education is sorely lacking in our society. Since his day job income potential is pretty limited (not that he is making a bad salary but he can’t really get promotions year after year), creating another source of income was the perfect plan for his situation. I bet it’s the case for many of you!

He even wrote a great book for students (I strongly suggest you buy this book for your kids!) called More Money for BEER and Textbooks. He explains how savvy students can get more for their money and keep partying over the weekend (we all know students don’t study over the weekend, been there, done that ).

Kyle is making money from a blog empire as well, while earning royalties from his book and now recently launched a pod cast. Guess who his latest interview was with…; Tom from Canadian Finance Blog!

He runs a similar business model as mine as he also partnered up with his best buddy; Justin (they even wrote the book together!). The two of them are doing remarkable work in bringing simple financial concepts to the community and helping them understand how to manage their finance. This is another great success story of a good side gig.

Don’t forget to get the book!

ME!

Well… I guess you already know about my story now ;-). Since 2008, I average about 100K in gross income from my online empire. I have a partner so you have to divide this number in two but still, 50K gross income per year is not bad.

I use my extra money to pay off my debts, travel and pay for utility bills. The other great thing is that I always get a premium computer or iPad since I need them to work with. It’s not always easy to work full time at a very demanding job, being the father of three and keeping my wife happy by cooking supper on Fridays and Saturdays ;-).

More seriously, I’ve slowed down with my business since our third child arrived but I can now see how to manage my schedule and get back full force with my online business. In the meantime, the money kept coming in and while it was tougher these past two years, it still a very generous sideline. I can’t imagine how I could earn this much by working more for someone else!

Because here’s the key: if you have a passion, take a few hours to work for yourself each week and you’ll start earning more than working for anybody else!

Comments

Cool proof that this stuff works Mike! Thanks for the very complimentary words! If I ever end up touching your income numbers for online or offline income I’ll be a happy man indeed. Then again I don’t have to put up with Montreal costs of living or Quebec tax rates…

Mike – I love your title for this post! Unlike many Internet entrepreneurs, I don’t really have the ultimate goal of quitting my day job. I foresee my online income probably surpassing my day job income within a year or two – but still am not sure I would quit the day job. I like being a trucker! All this extra income simply makes me a smarter and richer trucker than most other truckers. Hahaha.

Btw… Got 3 kids. And my niche site income is quickly multiplying from what you reported here. Very exciting stuff! Thanks for featuring me in this post. Very cool.